paste two tables of different sizes and fill blanks with NaN

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1

Hello,

I am pasting two tables of 6x4 and 4x4 together to get a 10x8 output. I want to fill the blank values with a NaN (Not a Number). How can I do this?

Thanks,
Guss

2

IS this what you mean?

4x4

4 4 4 4
4 4 4 4
4 4 4 4

6x4

6 6 6 6
6 6 6 6
6 6 6 6
6 6 6 6
6 6 6 6
6 6 6 6

gives:

6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6
6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6
6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6
6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6
6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6
6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6
4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 
4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4
4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4
4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4

This is how I interpret you question. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Please give us sample input & desired output.

3

Hi Jim,

My file1 (6 rows x 4 columns) is:

1 2 3 4
1 2 3 4
1 2 3 4
1 2 3 4
1 2 3 4
1 2 3 4

My file2 (4 rows x 4 columns) is:

5 6 7 8
5 6 7 8
5 6 7 8
5 6 7 8

paste file1 -d '\t' file2 > file 3 as shown below

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
1 2 3 4    
1 2 3 4

However I wan the bottom two rows that do not have values for cols 5-8 to be filled with NaN (shown below using 'N' for abbreviation.)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
1 2 3 4 N N N N
1 2 3 4 N N N N

Thanks for your input!
~Guss

4 
paste t1 t2 | awk -v OFS="\t" '{ (NF>M) && M=NF; for(N=1; N<=M; N++) length($N) || $N="NaN" } 1'

1       2       3       4       5       6       7       8
1       2       3       4       5       6       7       8
1       2       3       4       5       6       7       8
1       2       3       4       5       6       7       8
1       2       3       4       NaN     NaN     NaN     NaN
1       2       3       4       NaN     NaN     NaN     NaN

$